04 Colorado V8 swap (Lot's of pics!)

I have been gone for a while I know, but this thread will show you what I have been doing for the last year. Ralph (Seffieldvillage) is also a member on here, this is his truck but I am posting it for him. He did all the mechanical and paint and body work, and I did all the electrical/troubleshooting of this build. Mostly It will be pictures with a little bit of info, If you have any questions feel free to ask me or Ralph. Here is what we started with:

I should say that the truck is completed as of a few months ago, but I is getting a complete overhaul which I will explain later. More demolition pictures, Ralph is 65 years old and I'm 30 years old lol. Broad spectrum ha ha!!

We took the front fenders off to avoid damaging them, we were going to remove the inner fenders but they were welded to the frame so we didn't want to mess with that.

The fusebox comes apart in sections, a 7mm bolt holds each section in place. We removed C2 which is the engine block, C1 is body, and C3 is miscellaneous other stuff.

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Pulled the drive shaft out, which was relatively easy. The 5 cylinder didn't have very good pulling points, so we undid some bolts on the block and used the child safety restraint brackets to pick the engine out.

The ratchet wrench with a ton of extensions and an 18mm socket, Is what we had to use to get to the bellhousing bolts on the back of the transmission.

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We had to remove the header, because the engine would not clear with that on there. We ended up selling the engine, dual stainless exhaust and k&n intake for $1,000. This gave us more money to move forward, the motor never skipped a beat and served us well for the 77,000 miles it was in service.

Once we got the engine out, we realized how dirty and nasty the engine bay was. We spent several days cleaning, and then Ralph painted the frame gloss black and clear coated it. He also sanded the whole engine bay down, and repainted and clear coated it to match the truck. We also removed that nasty insulation mat on the firewall, It was filthy and all ripped up anyways.

The big blob of wiring behind the fuse box, Is all of the aftermarket wiring in this truck. Lights, lights, and more lights.

Sanded and painted the fuel rail, sanded the intake manifold and prepped it for paint. We used price tag dots to cover the valley bolt holes, sanded and painted coil pack mounts.

We bought the coils and brackets off of ebay for $105.00, engine harness & ecm from 2000 Camaro wth 40,000 miles for $400.00. While the injectors were out I cleaned them with brake cleaner CRC non chlorinated, and got an injector rebuild kit which included new upper and lower orings.

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Firewall all degreased, cleaned, sanded, primed, painted, and clear coated. Valve covers painted to match truck. first time they cracked pretty bad so they had to be stripped and redone. LS1 intake was a real challenge to paint and clear, many many hours of sanding lol!!

​Aftermarket wiring pulled under the truck, and out of the engine bay. Later this will be explained.

We reused the Colorado 4l60e, but it had to have several modifications to make it bolt up to the LS1. As you can see the Colorado bellhousing has a flat top, with two bolts on each corner. The LS1 style housing is called a 12 o' clock bellhousing as it has a single hole right in the middle at the top. We bought the LS1 bellhousing on ebay for $50.00 shipped, also the front pump and input shaft had to be changed as It has a different splined shaft. We also had to buy an LS1 style stall converter, we opted for a 2800 stall for good daily drive ability.

Engine pics will be explained later, some how these finished pics got in here first lol!!

​Thanks guys for the compliments!! I figured posting these pics, would give people an idea of what is really involved in an LS swap. It was our first LS swap, and I learned a TON about them.

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The sanded cover in the second picture is the engine cover from ZOOPS, It is designed to hide all the wiring and coil packs giving it a clean look. The ecm mounting bracket is out of a 98-04' S10, got it at pull a part for $1.37.

The engine mounts are from Current Performance, they are made for bolt in installation of LS engine into Colorado/canyon platform.

Finally got the engine mounted in the truck for a test fit, very tight clearance but it fits perfectly.